The signs on the door of the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville now label it "a cultural resource of the University of North Florida."

What exactly that means is still being discussed by both UNF and museum officials.

But one outcome of the new relationship will be an appearance this week at the museum by photographer Dan Estabrook, who uses 19th century photographic techniques to create 21st century works of art.

Estabrook, whose work is being exhibited at MOCA Jacksonville's UNF Art Gallery through March 14, will give a lecture Thursday on how he uses techniques created in the early days of photography to create modern photos.

In a telephone interview from his Brooklyn studio, Estabrook said he became fascinated with 19th century photographic techniques when he took a class about 20 years ago.

What he loved was using hands-on techniques to create work that "generally ends up talking about the past," he said. The result, he said, can be "amazing and alchemical."

Estabrook has received a number of major awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and in 2007 was the focus of a full-length documentary DVD published by Anthropy Arts.

His talk, and a workshop he is conducting for UNF students, represent the first of what is planned as an annual Barbara Ritzman Devereux Artist Workshop at UNF.

The workshops are being funded by a grant from Devereux's family. Devereux, who died in 2008 at the age of 91, was a long-time resident of Ponte Vedra Beach who went back to school and earned a bachelor's degree in art from UNF in 1992, when she was 75. She particularly loved photography.

"The faculty at UNF welcomed and nurtured our mother," said her son, Rick Devereux Jr. "She took photography to fulfill her studio requirement, and - after a fearful start in the dark room - her professors helped her realize her gift for self-expression."

"Our mother - Mom - would be very pleased to see UNF bringing in an artist of Estabrook's caliber/renown," her daughter, Jan Devereux, said in an e-mail. "She would be very sorry to miss this event ('Darn it')."